A study for a lost or unexecuted painting dated by Sir Denis Mahon, on the basis of the preparatory drawings, to the period 1635-8. Drawings related to the composition are in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, op. cit., no. 73), and in the Mahon Collection, D. Mahon and D. Ekserdjian, Guercino Drawings from the Collection of Sir Denis Mahon and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1986, no. 39, illustrated. The Ashmolean study is closest in composition to that of the recto of the present study, but with three soldiers accompanying Christ, one of which, as in this drawing, is about to hit Him with a stick. Guercino's reversal of the composition in the recto and the verso studies is very characteristic of his working method, examples of this include the series of drawings from the same period for the lost painting of The Assassination of Amnon at the Feast of his Half-brother Absalom, N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, op. cit., nos. 69-72, illustrated